We need not follow the brothers through the painful details of a progress which had few varieties to break its monotony, and nothing to relieve its gloom. Two days have made a wonderful difference in the appearance of both. Wild, stern and wretched enough before in aspect, there was now a grim, gaunt, wolf-like expression in the features of Alphonse D'Erlach, which showed that privation and labor were working fearfully upon the mind as well as the body. He was emaciated--his eyes sunken and glossy, staring intensely yet without expression--his hair matted upon his brows, and his movements rather convulsive than energetic. His soul was as strong as ever--his will as inflexible; but the tension of the mind had been too great, and nature was beginning to fail in the support of this rigor. He now strove but little in the work of soothing and cheering his less courageous brother. He had no longer a voice of encouragement, and he evidently began to think that the death for which the other had so much yearned would perhaps be no unwelcome visitor. Still, as if the maxims which we have heard him utter were a portion of his real nature, his cry was forever "On," and still his hand was outstretched towards blue summits that seemed to hide another world in the gulfs beyond them. "I can go no farther, Alphonse. I will go no farther. The struggle is worse than any death. I feel that I must sleep. I feel that sleep would be sweeter than anything you can promise." "If you sleep, you die." "I shall rejoice!" "You must not, brother. I will help you. I will carry you." He made the effort as he spoke--for a moment raised up the failing form of his brother--staggered forward, and sank himself beneath the burden. "Ha! ha!" he laughed hoarsely; "that we should fail with the Golden Copal in sight! But if we rest, we shall recover. Let us rest. Let us kindle here a fire, my brother, for my limbs feel cold also." "It is death, Alphonse." "Death! Pshaw! We cannot fail now; now that we are nearly at the summit. I tell you, brother, we are almost at the portals of that wondrous city. Once I doubted there were such city, but I have seen glimpses of towers, and methought but now I beheld the window in a turret from which a fair woman was looking forth. See now! Look you to the right--there where you see the mountain sink as it were, then suddenly rise again, the slopes leading gently up to a tower and a wall. The evening sunlight rests upon it. You see it is of a dusky white, and the window shows clearly through the stone, and some one moves within it. Dost thou see, my brother?" "I see nothing but the sky and ocean. It is the waters that roll about us." "It is the winds that you hear, as they sweep down from yonder mountains. But where I point your eyes is certainly a tower, a great castle--no doubt one that commands the ascent to the mountains." "Brother, this is so sweet!" "What?"